The three studies on this sheet depict the teenage dancer Marie van Goethem and were produced in preparation for Degas’s celebrated wax sculpture Little Dancer, Fourteen Years Old (National Gallery, Washington, DC). When that work was shown at the sixth Impressionist exhibition of 1881, the artist’s inclusion of a wig and a fabric bodice and skirt caused a sensation. Degas made numerous studies of Marie between 1878 and 1880. Here he portrayed her from three different angles, attempting to understand the figure in the round in preparation for sculpting it. As the chalk strokes show, her foreshortened left foot posed a problem when seen from behind, as did her bent arms in profile.
One of Degas' principal concerns as a draftsman was analyzing the movements and gestures of the female body. The three studies on this sheet depict the teenage dancer Marie van Goethem and were produced in preparation for the celebrated wax sculpture Little Dancer, Fourteen Years Old. The sculpture was briefly exhibited at the 1881 Salon, where the artist's inclusion of a wig and a fabric bodice and skirt caused a sensation.
Degas made numerous studies of Marie between 1878 and 1880. Here the artist studied her from three different angles, attempting to understand the figure in the round in preparation for sculpting it. As the chalk strokes show, her foreshortened left foot posed a problem when seen from behind, as did her bent arms in profile.
This large-scale work is one of Degas's studies made over a two-year period between 1878 and 1880 for the celebrated sculpture in wax "Petite Danseuse de Quatorze Ans", which he exhibited at the Salon in 1881.